Battle for National’s top job turns nasty

Press, 26 July 1989, Page 16

Battle for National’s top job turns nasty

From

Oliver Riddell

t in Wellington

THE BATTLE for the presidency of the National Party is the most personal and the nastiest either major party has seen for many years, if ever.

It is a two-man contest — between the incumbent Mr Neville Young, formerly of Christchurch but now living in Wellington, and Mr John Collinge of Auckland.

Their backgrounds make the contest look as if it has a North Island versus South Island and an Auckland versus Christchurch element. That is misleading. The contest is over Mr Young’s presidency and whether delegates to National’s annual conference in Dunedin from August 10 to 13 endorse it or reject it. Mr Young replaced the resigning Mrs Sue Wood in 1986 as a compromise candidate. He had a long record in the party at regional level, and so was able to come through the middle between the non-party reformer (Mr Brian Shackel of Christchurch) and the candidate from the headquarters hierarchy (Mr Hamish Kynoch of Hawke’s Bay).

The qualities Mr Young has displayed as president have alienated as well as attracted support.

He has strong support in some regions — particularly in Auckland under the regional leadership of Dr Ross Armstrong and in Christchurch under the regional leadership of Mrs Lee Burdon. But he also has enemies. These are concentrated in Wellington, and to a lesser extent, in Waikato and Auckland. The watershed event of Mr Young’s three-year presidency was his dismissal of his chief executive, Mr Max Bradford.

Their personal differences are now overshadowed by how the party stalwarts are lining up after the event. Mr' Bradford represented the urban, professional, socially liberal but financially free enterprise a party many in National want the party to become. That perception of Mr Bradford alienated those in the party who felt threatened by his views. His dismissal acted as the focus for the long-simmering unhappiness with Mr Young. Mr Young was seen as too conservative and too traditional, and his dismissal of Mr Bradford unmasked him in the eyes of those who had not known where he stood.

But getting rid of Mr Bradford was not a unilateral decision by Mr Young; it reflected the wish of those who felt Mr Bradford

was going too far too quickly. It is not just the Bradford supporters who are backing Mr Collinge but they are providing the impetus. Such noted figures as the previous president, Mrs Wood; the previous party leader, Mr Jim McLay; a former press officer for both Mr McLay and the present party leader, Mrs Michelle Boag; and others less well-known are rallying behind Mr Collinge. They used to be the party hierarchy. Mr Collinge’s campaign is attacking the party hierarchy and he is offering better leadership, better tactics, better fund-raising and more openness — the classic offer of the outsider. Those supporting Mr Young are how the party hierarchy. They see the attack on Mr Young as an attack on themselves, and so it is. Supporters of both candidates have taken off the gloves and behind the genteel and sometimes amateurish facade the National Party presents a very professional and viscerial campaign is being waged by the partisans of each side. However much of an over simplification it is, Mr Young and Mr Collinge are now seen by delegates as representing — respectively — “respectable” and "dynamic” wings of the National Party. The battle for the hearts and minds of delegates to Dunedin next month is in full swing and so are the tactics to get delegates of the right persuasion to a conference so expensively distant from the main population centres.